


The Big American Family Cooking Showdown

by dearlydraupadi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Cooking, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Reality TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-03-02 00:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13306665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearlydraupadi/pseuds/dearlydraupadi
Summary: Steve Rogers is a cameraman for the Big American Family Cooking Showdown. Bucky Barnes is a contestant along with his mother and sister. Steve Rogers can't stop filming Bucky Barnes' beautiful face. It's not long before the rest of the crew is getting annoyed, Bucky is getting a clue, and Steve is getting embarrassed. Welcome to the Big American Family Cooking Showdown!





	1. The $20 Challenge

The contestants were nervous, but then again the contestants were always nervous for this part, where the hosts were introducing the judges, before the shininess had worn off. He could see how the lights and cameras, including the beauty currently strapped to his front, might intimidate some people, but Steve had never much minded them, being in front of or behind the lens. Then again, he wasn’t the one being asked to make a brunch to feed four for only $20 on regional television and then feed it to a Michelin starred chef.

Maybe they had a right to be nervous.

Steve scanned the contestants with his camera while Trish and Sam named each family member. He paused on all of them, his job being the middle ground coverage that would be intercut with closeups and some full frame shots in the editing. He liked his job, like painting with a much larger brush, but introductions were always a little dull. Until he panned from the Stark family to the Barnes and felt his heart flutter a little in his chest. 

Where the Stark family was a study in contrasts, and really made for excellent visual media, with the woman’s tall lean form and long hair and the two men, each about the same height but drastically different builds and skintones, the Barnes family was clearly from the same genetic mold. If that wasn’t a mother and her two children, Steve would eat his camera. He tuned back in as Sam introduced them: “And here we have the Barneses! Barnesi?” The family chuckled politely and Sam beamed at them like beaming was his job. (It was.)

“Bucky, you’ve brought your mother and sister with you today, is that right?” Sam said, waving to the most attractive man that Steve had ever seen in his life. The man was like a Raphael painting in human form and wearing a Henley, tousled brown hair falling in waves across a brow made to be studied in oils. Oh Steve wanted to paint him. Steve wanted to do a lot of things to him. Charcoals, maybe? Pastels even, and Steve didn’t really like pastels normally, they messed with his lungs…

“Steven.”

Steve smoothly panned over to get footage of sister Becca and mother Winnie as they were introduced as well. Natasha wasn’t the type to make idle threats, and the best way to deal with her was to never let her get to the threatening stage in the first place. He’d deal with Bucky “must be immortalized in art” Barnes later. Somehow.

Becca looked nice, and mostly looked like her brother but in female form. She did nothing for Steve obviously but she was smiling with a particularly wicked grin that made him think she was probably fun. Their mother, Winnie, had a gently besieged look that implied raising her two children, if there were even only two of them, hadn’t been the easiest thing in the world. Steve could believe it. His own mother had had trouble with just him, and he wasn’t nearly as attractive as Bucky was. She probably had to beat the neighborhood boys off with a stick…

“Rogers. Your camera is drifting.”

Okay. Camera on the hosts as Trish smiled and explained the challenge, while the contestants pretended that they hadn’t definitely already known about it, prepared for it, practiced it at home, and picked their ingredients off of the shelves. Steve concentrated on Trish’s shiny blonde hair and perfect teeth, wondering idly if Jess was going to show up to work today or not, while she rattled off the challenge. Twenty dollars, brunch, an hour to cook, have fun. All the usual, of course. But since Trish had announced, Steve panned to Sam for the final moment: “Wonderful families, go!”

They were off in a rush. The Stark family immediately began pulling out pots with precision. Steve filmed in amusement for a minute while one of the men tried to insist that he knew the next step and the other told him not to bother. “Pepper has the list, Tony,” he said. “You know the rules. Pepper is in charge of the kitchen. Pepper is literally always in charge of the kitchen.” Tony pouted but went off to do something, presumably Pepper approved, and Pepper herself came over to give her defender a kiss on the cheek. They were fun. He liked them.

But a moment longer saw his camera inexorably moving to film the Barnes family, who had exploded into arguing the moment Sam told them to go. Bucky and Becca were desperately debating how much spice to use while their mother ignored them both and simply added however much she thought was right. Steve loved it. 

He double checked the room and saw that Jess was in fact there, holding the boom over Tony Stark as he said something into the camera about what he was cooking. That camera was being operated by Clint, which meant Steve was free to do as much coverage of the Barnes family as he wanted. And oh did he want. “Covering Barnes,” he said into his headset.

“Color me shocked,” came Natasha’s dry reply, which Steve chose to ignore as he walked his steadicam over to the Barnes “kitchen” and asked them what they were cooking, double checking to see that, yes, Peter had followed and the boom was appropriately raised to get their answers. Winnie was bent over a mixing bowl, whisking furiously, as Becca quickly sliced a large braided loaf of bread into thick pieces and spread them on a baking sheet. Bucky, meanwhile, was briskly scrubbing small fish in a sieve. They all looked up at him, surprised again by the existence of the cameras and the reminder that, yes, they were on television.

Well, not yet, but soon anyway.

Becca was the first to speak, wiping at her forehead with an inner elbow and knocking away a few loose curls. “We wanted to make something we’d actually eat for brunch,” she said, “but the time crunch was a big pressure.”

“Not the budget?” Steve found himself saying.

Bucky laughed and it was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever heard. He didn’t have to even turn his camera, it was already there. “The budget’s pretty dead on, honestly. You think every Brooklyn kid’s gonna spend more than twenty bucks on a meal for four? Sounds like a big spender to me.” Winnie and Becca both laughed.

“You’re from Brooklyn? Which part?” 

“Borough Park, where else?” Winnie smiled. “Our family has been there for ages.”

“Mine’s from Red Hook,” Steve was going to have to gag himself because this was not appropriate or relevant to the show but he couldn’t not say things and it was a problem.

“A Brooklyn boy, huh?” Bucky said, grinning at Steve while Steve tried to shrink behind the camera to hide his sudden furious blush. “Selling out by crossing the bridge just for a lousy job. You’re a traitor to our people, aren’t ya?”

“You’re here too,” Steve jabbed back.

“He’s got you there, Buck,” said Becca. “Now quit flirting and finish up the anchovies.”

Bucky turned a faint purple color and went back to scrubbing fish while his sister carried on as if their entire interlude, ninety seconds of perfection that Steve was going to have to replay at least a dozen times before he fell asleep that night, hadn’t happened. “We wanted to make the same food we wouldn’t normally make for brunch,” she said, “but we were worried about the time. Not so much the budget, because we’re used to tight money, but we have a lot of time on the weekends for cooking together.”

Steve aimed the camera straight at her. She had a wide open face and a smile that hinted at itself even when she was talking normally. Also she was completely without shame about teasing her brother and when he was done feeling embarrassed himself, Steve was pretty sure he was going to really like her.

“So we’re making Challah French Toast, Charoset to go on top, some broiled anchovies, and a Moroccan orange and black olive salad for a savory more filling bit on the side.”

Steve resisted the urge to whistle. Impressive that they got it in under budget. Sam, who’d wandered up while Becca was talking, didn’t bother to restrain himself. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you got all of that for twenty dollars? That’s insane.”

Bucky beamed. “Our Ma is the best in the world at stretching a dollar. Tell ‘em, Ma.”

He panned over as Winnie ducked her head and waved a slightly eggy hand. “It’s nothing much. You have four teenagers in the house at once, not to mention all the cousins, on a single mother’s salary, and you see how fast you can learn to make a dollar count.” Bucky and Becca both, as if planned, leaned over and gave their mother smacking kisses on the cheek. Steve was maybe having a feeling.

“That’s good television; I hope you were filming that,” came Natasha’s voice in his ear.

“Obviously,” he whispered. 

Another few minutes passed of the Barnes family cooking and occasional questions and pestering from Sam while Steve and Peter filmed. Every once in a while Bucky would look up and make quick eye contact with Steve before looking down again, but Steve was resolutely not thinking about that very hard, nope.

Steve found he was falling into a lull, watching them cook, like it was warm and familiar, even with the bickering and the badgering. He jolted slightly, nervously steadying the camera, as he saw out of the corner of his eye that the judges were approaching. He straightened himself. It didn’t really matter if they thought he was slacking, but somehow he didn’t want his behavior to reflect poorly on the Barneses. Which was probably a bad sign in itself.

The judges, esteemed food critic Matt Murdock and respected Michelin award winning chef Frigga, walked up to the Barnes table arm in arm. Ostensibly it was so that Frigga could guide Matt over there and he wouldn’t have to use his cane. But everyone on the crew knew that Matt’s sense of hearing was so acute and he knew the studio so well he could have easily done it alone. Really it was for the visual, for the intimidating presence of two judges showing up, a united front. Also it was cute and it made for a good shot. He just hoped no one got flustered.

“Good afternoon,” Frigga said. “What are you making for us today?”

This time Bucky was the first one to speak. “We’re making a Challah French Toast, charoset, some anchovies, and an orange and olive salad.”

Becca rolled her eyes and Steve made sure to quicky zoom in and catch it. “Really, Bucky. ‘Some anchovies.’ Way to sell our food to two of the best palates in the world.”

“Please forgive my children,” said Winnie, stepping forward to dip a piece of Challah into the batter. “They weren’t raised right.”

It was only Steve’s long experience on set that told him Frigga was holding in a laugh. To his surprise, though, Matt, usually the more serious and cooler of the judges, broke into a wide smile. “I can tell you all really enjoy cooking together,” he said. “And it smells delicious. It’ll be wonderful to taste it all when you’re done.”

Matt took Frigga’s hand again, and they walked over to talk to the Stark family, leaving the Barneses a little flustered in their wake.

“Isn’t he normally really kind of…” said Bucky.

“Yeah,” said Steve. “He really is.”

Fortunately for Steve’s nerves, and judging by Natasha’s tone his job security, the rest of the cooking proceeded without incident, and while there was some slightly over dramatic scrambling at the last minute to get things plated and ready for the judges, both families had everything ready well in time for the final countdown. No doubt the editors would inevitably make it look like a mad rush, but really it had all gone according to both plans. Steve stepped back and away and moved to film at the main table for the first round tastings.

Frigga and Matt took their seats, and Steve saw that someone had seen fit to match them in ever so slightly complementary colors. Clever, that. He’d have to make sure the light was best to catch their outfits. It was a good piece of costuming that served to remind everyone who was on which team, and that the judges were, essentially, a team of their own.

The Starks were up first for the tasting, and Steve found himself suddenly quite curious about what they’d made. It turned out they’d decided to make breakfast burritos for their brunch meal, along with a line of Bloody Mary’s that Frigga was eyeing happily. 

Steve filmed as Matt delicately and with more grace than most people would credit him picked up a burrito and took a large bite without getting a single drop on his very nice suit. It was almost annoying how good he was at that. Frigga stuck to small bites as she hummed and hawwed over the internals of the burrito. Finally she decided that, yes, she did like it very much. So did Matt, though he noted that the flavor of the beans was very mild, so mild that it was barely even there. Frigga admitted she’d forgotten there even were beans, and already Steve could tell that the missing beans were going to be a whole storyline when the episode made it to air.

Next was the Barnes family and their plates. The Challah was crisp and battered a perfect golden brown, with the wine from the charoset running down it in pink rivulets. Next to it, salted oranges and olives formed a barrier before you got to the broiled anchovies, like a continuum of flavors leading from sweet and into savory and back as many times as you’d like to go. Steve was suddenly extremely hungry.

Matt took a bite and Steve realized that he might be just a little bit nervous. Then Frigga took a bite and he realized he was absolutely petrified. He’d never been this invested in a contestant before. Or rather, in a family before. Obviously he was interested in more than just Bucky.

Actually, he was interested in more than just Bucky. He liked all of them. The Starks seemed nice, but he wanted the Barneses to win because they knew how to stretch a dollar and they were from Brooklyn and they made him feel at home when they cooked and Matt was talking and he should probably be filming.

“…Love how the flavor of the charoset plays on the crispness of the Challah. While I would have liked to have homemade bread for the French Toast, I understand you didn’t have enough time.”

“You want to use day old bread, anyway,” said Bucky. “So slightly stale storebought Challah is better than fresh for this actually.”

“Interesting,” said Frigga. “And I love how you’ve arranged the plate! This orange and olive salad, I’ve never had anything like it. How lovely the flavors as they mix with the fish. I like how the salad in the middle could almost go with either of the dishes on each side. Well done.”

“You’ve shown us what brunch tastes like at your house,” said Matt, “and I believe brunch is a really wonderful time there.”

Winnie looked genuinely touched, and Steve stayed on her face as the judges cleared away and Trish and Sam moved into position to announce the next challenge. After this, he wouldn’t see them for a few weeks while they prepared. In the meantime, he’d be filming more of these twenty dollar challenges. It was strange to imagine missing contestants, but he imagined he would. He liked them.

As the lighting rig was set up around Sam and Trish, with Matt and Frigga off to the side, Steve focused on checking his camera battery for these last shots. He was startled then when a voice sounded beside him.

“Hey, Brooklyn.”

Steve looked over, and, yeah, it was Bucky.

“I don’t know your name, and it seemed better than calling you Camera Guy.”

Steve smiled. “I answer to it. You yell that enough times and I do come running.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. What’s your name, camera guy?”

“Steve. Steve Rogers.”

“Well, Steve Rogers,” he said, rolling the name in his mouth, “I’ve noticed a little something today. Mostly you. And your camera. Following me.”

Steve gulped.

“Like, a lot.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bucky grinned. “Don’t be. It’s flattering. The question is, are you going to do anything about it, or now that you’ve had your way with me with your camera are you going to leave me and go?”

Steve wanted nothing more in the world in that moment than to make like a romcom and throw caution to the wind but, “I can’t.”

“You can’t,” Bucky repeated.

“You’re a contestant and I’m on the crew. We are explicitly forbidden from dating contestants. Literally. I signed a contract.” Steve sighed. “Sorry.”

“So you just can’t date me while I’m a contestant on this show?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a harsh rule but it’s a really important move forward for our labor standards with sexual harassment proceedings and…”

Bucky stopped him. “What about when I’m not a contestant anymore.”

“Huh?”

“The show doesn’t go forever, idiot. I like you, even if I’m not sure why, and you clearly like my face at least. So give it a few weeks. If we still want to date after I’m done humiliating myself on national television, we can try then.”

“Regional television. And what if you win?”

“We’ll fall off that bridge when we get to it.”

Steve smiled. “Okay. Okay. Bucky Barnes, will you go on a date with me, maybe, in about five weeks?”

Bucky grinned back. “Steve Rogers, I would maybe love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it wasn't overly clear, the Stark family is Pepper, Tony, and Rhodey, and they're lovely and will get a lot more time and room to breathe in chapter two (assuming I write one). The judges are Frigga and Matt Murdock because Frigga is the goddess of hearth and home and Matt has a super sensitive palate, so it seemed appropriate and also fun. Natasha is a producer, which she would kick ass at, and Peter Parker and Jessica Jones are boom techs because neither of them is super reliable about keeping a job. Don't @ me, you know I'm right.
> 
> Oh, and I firmly stand by the Jewish Barnes family aesthetic. Fight me.


	2. Family Favorites - Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a mope and gets some surprisingly good advice from Tony Stark.

As luck would have it, Steve wasn’t going to get a chance to even see Bucky again for five weeks, let alone date him.

Their filming schedule being what it was, first they had to do the in studio work on each of the two-team pairups for the first round of family battles. He filmed so many twenty dollar challenges he thought he was going to have the host’s dialogue permanently running through his head on a loop. The families were mostly nice, with a few oddballs thrown in for good measure. He particularly liked the Wilsons, who had casually talked about sex work and violent crime in front of their teenage daughter before realizing that they might not want to talk about it in front of a camera, and the Zana family from Wakanda, who made the most amazing food while being bossed around by their youngest member, an aspiring food scientist.

But none of the families had been the Barnes family. None of the families had a Bucky, and after two weeks of shooting, Steve was still hung up on the sweep of Bucky’s hair as it fell across his forehead, the little crook in his smile, and the way he apparently knew how to cook the classics in a way that made even Matt Murdock melt. 

Steve was a goner. So it was with a lot of disappointment that he read that instead of going straight to the Barnes’ kitchen for their in-home shoot, he would be going to the Stark family abode to shoot them. Natasha’s orders.

He tried to appeal. He really did.

“No,” she’d said, without even looking at him.

“I didn’t say anything,” he’d replied, hovering over her station and wringing his hands. “But why, Nat?”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m not sending you over there because I want our viewers to see actual footage of actual people cooking in their actual homes, not two hours of footage of a lucky contestant’s ass.”

“I would never.”

“Careful, Rogers. Any harder and some pearls will spontaneously manifest so you can clutch them.”

“I just want to see him again.”

“And you will, after it is no longer a lawsuit waiting to happen. Now get out.”

And that was that.

So instead of spending time in Bucky’s kitchen, seeing where he grew up, hearing his mother and sister tell stories, looking at family photos, and just getting to be near Bucky, he was going to a Manhattan high rise to film the admittedly perfectly fine Stark family while they made their perfectly fine food. It was a terrible day.

“Hey Steve!”

Also Parker was coming, which meant he was going to have to be on watch all day to make sure Peter didn’t break something that cost more than his rent.

By the time they got to the building, an elegant skyscraper in downtown, Peter had already spilled his coffee all over himself (and a little bit on Steve), cracked a supposedly uncrackable carry case for one of their mic sets, and crashed into no less than five unsuspecting pedestrians while trying to unload the van. Steve was more than prepared to duct tape a couple of couch pillows to his boom assistant to lower the coming property damage, but he thought that might not send the right message to their contestants.

Sam knocked on the door to a penthouse apartment. Peter edged too close to the hallway table and its expensive vase for anyone’s comfort. Steve resolutely did not sulk.

The door opened with a soft click – the kind of click that just whispered money – and the dark-haired man with the beard from before was in front of them. He stared at them and without turning his head yelled, “Pepper, honey, the vultures are here!”

They heard faint scuffling come from further inside and then the man was none too gently pushed out of the doorway as the tall, elegant redhead took his place. “Hi,” she said, not a hair out of place, “sorry about Tony.”

Sorry about Tony became the theme for the morning as they were ushered into a palatial New York apartment. As far as Steve could tell, and not that it was any of his business, Pepper, the redheaded woman, and Rhodey, the other man, had a sort of timeshare agreement going for access to Tony and the situation seemed to work for him. He gave them credit, it was one of the most functional poly relationships he’d ever seen, but he still couldn’t quite figure out what Tony had going for him that had two competent, beautiful people rushing to rearrange schedules to be with him. So far that afternoon, and it had only been an hour, he’d insulted Peter, burnt some rather crucial dish or other, slapped Pepper on the ass and then slapped Rhodey on the ass when he complained, and generally acted a menace. Steve didn’t get it.

Then again, Steve wasn’t dating the guy, so he didn’t have to get it.

For his part, Steve focused on filming the food rather than the people this time. To their credit, the Stark family – that was how they were being credited, inaccurate as he was learning the name to actually be – was preparing an ambitious dinner. Their family favorites apparently involved homemade sushi and seaweed salad and mochi ice cream balls, which were admittedly impressive things to make on a ninety minute schedule. He got sweeping shots of Rhodey and Pepper delicately preparing the main course, and a few shots of Tony accidentally scorching the sticky rice for the mochi before salvaging it and getting all of his pieces in the freezer with time to help plate the sushi.

And yes, he was a professional, so he filmed their banter. It was sweet and nice and he was not moping at all. He was a professional, damn it.

“Hey, Atlas.”

Steve kept filming as Pepper meticulously began to roll up a well-filled dragon maki.

“Adonis.”

Her hands were sure as she slid the roll into place and began to cut and he was impressed to note that it didn’t have any cracks.

“Captain America.”

Steve didn’t so much whip around as gently pan, but he did eventually come to face Tony, who was leaning against the countertop, smirking at him. “I assume you’re talking to me?”

“Well I don’t know your name and I figured a guy like you was probably used to responding to one of those nicknames, so…”

Steve blushed and began filming a wide shot of Rhodey as he tossed seaweed on the other side of the kitchen. “My name is Steve.”

“Ah Steve. Steve Steve Steve. Why are you so miserable, Steve?”

The camera shuddered in Steve’s hands before he smoothly picked it back up and kept filming. “I’m not miserable. I’m fine.”

“You look like you’re about to start crying.”

Steve risked a glance away from the camera and up at Tony who had an uncharacteristic, at least for the hour Steve had known him, serious look on his face. “I’m not going to start crying.”

“Good to know, Cap, but that doesn’t answer why you look like you will.” Tony shifted his feet and gave Steve a frank assessment. “It’s not our relationship, is it? Are you uncomfortable with me and Pep and Rhodey?”

Steve stood up. Screw filming. This was an actually important conversation. He put the camera down. Nat could yell at him later all she wanted. He waved Peter away, and Peter wisely took off in the direction of Trish and Pepper.

“I have no problem with your relationship, Tony,” Steve said. “Really. I’m just kind of down today and it has nothing to do with you.”

“But it does,” said Tony, scratching his ear. “Like, I’m glad that you’re not an asshole and we don’t have to request a new cameraman, but you keep sighing and looking down and being wistful and then being pissed and it’s obvious that something is bothering you and it’s in this apartment. Do you hate sushi? Did a fish piss on your mother? Are you in love with the boom guy?”

Steve made a horrified face. “I never want my dick anywhere near Peter. He’s a disaster.”

From across the room, Peter yelled, “I heard that!”

Steve shrugged. “It still true.”

Tony laughed. “Okay, no camera crew forbidden love then. But something is bothering you. Let it out, my man, so we can go back to filming and I can crush this other family and show how all powerful the Stark family name truly is.

Steve sighed.

“Ohhhhh.”

“What? What oh. Oh nothing.”

Tony smirked. “You have a crush on the other team. You’re bummed that you have to be with us rather than them. Let me guess. The scary redhead producer is punishing you somehow and keeping you from your lady love?”

Steve’s face turned purple and he wished in that moment that the earth would swallow him whole. Still, he believed in honesty. “It’s the guy but yes, basically.” He looked down at his shoes. “I just want to spend more time with him.”

He jolted as Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “Buck up, cupcake,” he said, grinning. “If that’s all the problem is, we can make that happen.”

Steve gave him a baffled look.

“Okay, I’m not going to say we throw the competition because the Stark family does not enter contests we don’t intend to win, but I think you need to think of this the right way. Either we win and he’s not a contestant and you can date him…”

“If he even still wants to.”

“Whatever sourpuss. Or we lose and you get more time to convince him he’s your true love. You’re win win right now, Mr. America sir. So stop moping and get filming. Pepper is being cute over there and you’re missing it.”

Steve took a deep breath and thought about it. The thing was, Tony was right. He did have time. He did have options. And he did have the assurance that Bucky at least kind of liked him. Maybe this was going to be okay.

He picked up his camera and filmed. No more sighing. Today was going to be a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's a little short but it's there! As per usual, it takes a bit of time for Tony and Steve to see eye to eye, but when they do, it works out well for them both. 
> 
> I have a plan to finish this thing out with four chapters so keep your eyes peeled for this baby to actually finish!


	3. Family Favorites - Barnes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint has a mishap and Steve finally gets to see the inside of the Barnes house.

The Starks had knocked their Family Favorites challenge out of the park, burnt mochi notwithstanding, but Steve wasn’t overly upset. He was turning over a new page in his new Bucky-filled life, and this one was about appreciating the moment he was in. He’d gotten good footage, Natasha was happy with him, and however the judging went down in the final round, he was probably going to get to go on a date with Bucky Barnes. Hopefully, anyway.

It meant he had a rare day off today, being banned from the Barnes kitchen and all, and was getting ready to do some laundry, maybe go grocery shopping and catch up on his Hulu queue, when he got the text from Natasha: Clint is idiot – ur on deck. Dnt fuck it up.

He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what had happened.

After yesterday’s taping of the Cage family’s Family Favorites challenge – which was amazing, with their Cuban-inspired dishes and the sense of place and history they all managed to bring to the table, especially Pops – Clint and Jessica had invited Steve to go out drinking with them and Matt. He’d begged off. He knew not to tangle with Matthew Murdock’s uncanny alcohol tolerance and Jessica’s inhuman ability to down whiskey. Apparently Clint hadn’t been quite so wise. He wasn’t sure where they’d ended up, but it was safe to say that even if he spent the whole day filming Bucky Barnes’ ass, he’d probably still be better off than Clint Barton when Natasha got her hands on him.

So Steve was going to get to go to the Barnes family home after all. He viciously stuffed down all the many feelings inside that wanted to scream how happy this made him. It made him very happy indeed. He giggled slightly to himself. He was going to see Bucky Barnes’ house! He was going to see Bucky Barnes! His inner teenager, the short, asthmatic fighter who’d gone stag to prom was having heart palpitations and needed a doctor.

What if he saw Bucky’s bedroom?

No.

Steve was a professional. He was a grown man. He was standing in his living room holding a pair of boxers and he really needed to get dressed and go to work. He was not going to fuck this up. Not just because Natasha would kill him, but because Bucky was expecting him to be a perfectly normal and reasonable person who didn’t harbor creepy thoughts about childhood bedrooms.

If Steve took a little extra time getting dressed and maybe looked a little bit better than he usually did for shooting days, that was his own business.

“Your shirt is like three sizes too small. And your pants are so tight I can basically see your dick.”

Well maybe it was Jessica’s business too.  
“Hi Jessica. Good morning. I slept well. Did you sleep well after you destroyed Clint’s career and liver?”

She snorted and hefted her boom into the van. “That guy cannot drink. I swear we walked him home. Matt knew where he lived and everything. Not our problem if he left afterwards.”

Steve sighed. It was a fair point, but still. 

“Don’t sigh at me, Rogers, we both know this isn’t the first time Barton has woken up in a dumpster with no shirt on.”

Probably true.

Steve loaded his gear and got into the driver’s seat. Apparently sober or not, he did not want Jessica behind the wheel. He didn’t really want her sitting shotgun either, but she always beat Sam at rock-paper-scissors somehow. Sam slid into the back and Jess thudded into the passenger side. It was then that Steve realized he had no idea where he was going.

“Guys. The address. I need it for the GPS?”

“Sorry Stevester,” came Sam’s reply. “Natasha’s orders. You are allowed to go to the Barnes residence and I guess you are technically allowed to infer his address from the information around you but we cannot actually give you his address because that would be against our sexual harassment policy.”

Banging his head on the steering wheel, Steve said, “I never should have told any of you he asked me out.”

Without looking up from her phone, Jess said, “Dude, it’s on film.”

He banged his head harder.

Navigating to the Barnes residence only via directions shouted from Sam in the backseat was a little bit harder than usual, made only slightly more annoying by Jessica’s occasional “helpful” insistence that she knew a shortcut and Sam’s agreement that she very well might. Their plan did work fairly well – by the time they got to the house, Steve had almost no idea where they were. He barely knew the street name, let alone the neighborhood. He’d never be able to find his way back if he didn’t write it down right now. But that would be creepy and he was trying very hard not to be creepy.

They let Sam be the one to knock on the door, both for the filming aspect and because out of all of them he had the best social skills. By a lot. Jess just guzzled her coffee and strode inside without taking off her sunglasses as soon as they were invited in. But Steve found himself suddenly shy. When Winifred Barnes had opened the door, he was flooded with doubt. What if Bucky didn’t like him anymore. What if the past two weeks had been ones where Bucky realized how much better he could do. What if he’d met someone new.

He fiddled with his equipment in the van for as long as he could. So long that he was seriously starting to wonder if he was being rude. He just, after all this, he couldn’t bring himself to go inside.

“Hey – what’re you still doing out here?”

Steve whirled around and, yeah, there he was. Bucky was still just as beautiful and perfect and awe-inspiring as he’d been two weeks ago. “Uh, hey, Bucky. Hey.”

Bucky smiled. “Hey yourself. You being shy out here, Rogers?”

“No,” Steve said, deciding that he would rather eat a hat now than admit to Bucky Barnes that he’d been afraid to go inside and face him. “I just needed to check on my camera and stuff to make sure it got here all right. That’s all. Totally normal.”

“Sure,” Bucky said, grinning. “Well now that you’ve seen it is, why don’t you come on inside. We have snacks.”

Steve followed Bucky into a small brownstone, the doorway almost brushing his shoulders as he went past. The airlock entry led into a foyer positively crammed with photos of Winnie and her four children. Bucky and his sisters wallpapered the small space and Steve could hardly stop staring at all the photos. Bucky grabbed his arm to keep him moving. A glimpse into the living room promised more photos and … were those trophies? But Bucky was relentless in dragging Steve straight back into the dining room where he found platters laid out and food already waiting for him. He turned to Bucky.

“You know you’re supposed to wait for us to show up before you start cooking, right?”

Bucky gently slapped his arm. “These are for you, wiseguy. Kolache. They’re just pastries with fruit or cheese filling. Eat some, might make you less shy.”

“I was checking the equipment.”

Fixing Steve with an unbelieving stare as he sauntered into the kitchen, Bucky just said, “Sure you were, Stevie. I totally believe you.”

Steve shoved a kolache in his mouth. It was amazing. Of course it was amazing.

In stark contrast to how he’d felt shooting the Starks, time seemed to fly by as Steve filmed the Barnes family in their home. Before starting them on their Family Favorites challenge, they filmed some basic filler footage. Interviews and cooking shots that they would intersperse into the episode to add depth and color to the challenges. Steve loved this part of his job, getting to know the contestants, and it wasn’t hard to enjoy getting to know the Barnes family better.

“Who’s the boss in the kitchen? Mom is, of course!”

Winnie made a considering noise and waved a hand. Becca also looked a little less convinced. “Bucky has always been headstrong,” she said diplomatically. “When he has an opinion about a dish we tend to take it into consideration because if we don’t he’ll go out of his gourd.”

Becca nodded. “One time he got so mad that he took his shirt off in the middle of the kitchen and just stood there and made us work around him. It was like having a toddler all over again.”

Steve resolutely did not imagine an angry shirtless Bucky in the kitchen. He absolutely did not think about it. Nope.

The interviews revealed that Becca, who was married with two small children, still came over to the family home on Friday nights for Shabbat dinner and that their sisters always made sure to be home as well. For all that the family was spread out across the city now, they’d made sure to stay close and everyone spent part of the weekend at home before heading to temple together in the morning. Bucky and his sister Esther were the only ones still living in the house, but Winnie was making noises about hosting foreign exchange students next semester, unhappy with having empty bedrooms and places at the dinner table.

He liked them. He genuinely liked them. They were good people and he felt like if he spent much more time there they might adopt him too. Maybe it was just the four and a half kolaches he’d eaten, but Steve felt suffused with a warm glow. Hell, even the photos and art and trophies and other tchotchkes (as Winnie called them) placed around the apartment made Steve feel more at home in this, what was essentially a stranger’s house. It was like there was a magic on the threshold and he was destined to be there.

Jess elbowed him in the side and told him to pick up his camera because they were about to start filming for the challenge, “You idiot.” His warm glow suffused into a dim heat.

The challenge was the same as the Stark’s: make a family favorite meal, consisting of an entrée and a dessert, in ninety minutes. While the Starks had chosen to go out there on their flavors but maybe play it safe on the preparation, the Barnes family was doing the opposite. Their choices were warm and comforting flavors, the kind of thing they would happily make at home, but with a terrifyingly steep preparation factor.

“I’m sorry,” said Sam, leaning in so the mic would definitely catch their conversation as he spoke with Becca. “You’re making falafel, pita, hummus, pickled beets, and special Jewish cookies all from scratch in an hour and a half?”

“Yeah,” said Becca, frantically opening cans of chickpeas into a food processor. “Don’t make me think about it or I’ll get stressed out.”

With so many moving pieces to the meal, it was all Steve could do to stand in the doorway of the kitchen and film the chaos. While Becca made the meal for the falafel, Bucky was mixing hamantaschen dough in a large mixer. As he rolled it out, Winnie whisked the bowl away to be washed and reused for the pita bread. It was like watching a well oiled machine that cranked out delicious food. It was also a lot more food than they needed to feed two judges.

“Hey guys,” Sam said, “You know that Murdock and Frigga aren’t going to eat like a full meal, right? You don’t have to make enough for ten people.”

Bucky paused in his rolling and cutting to give Sam a Look. “Of course we know that. But if we’re going to the trouble of making falafel and hamantaschen on a day that’s not Purim, you’d best believe we’re going to eat some of it too. And we made enough for you guys so as not to be rude.”

Steve’s not exactly boyfriend was the best and most thoughtful person on the planet and he was more than a little bit in love already. It was fine.

The hamantaschen were getting filled while the oil was heated and the pita balls rested. Becca and Winnie frantically rolled falafel balls while Bucky triumphantly shoved a cookie sheet in the oven and set the timer. “Pickle time!” he yelled, causing even Jess to jump a little.

By the time the pickled beets and cabbage were setting in the fridge and the falafel was frying and the pita was being cooked on the stove, most of the hamantaschen were done and cooling. Bucky was left to wander the kitchen and make it look a little less like a tornado had hit it. Until – 

“Balls! The hummus! Guys! Hummus!”

A quick scramble for more chickpeas and the food processor led to fresh hummus in a bowl being set on the table, just in time to be joined by the steaming falafel, cold pickled vegetables and a Jerusalem salad, piping hot pita, and perfectly triangular hamantaschen. Steve lovingly dragged his camera across them all, making sure the food glistened and practically wafted onto the camera lens. He was grateful, just for a moment, that he hadn’t kissed Bucky yet, on the off chance that when he finally did it might taste a little bit like all this food.

Okay that was weird and he was a pervert. He just needed to accept that about himself and move on.

A ring at the door meant that Matt and Frigga had arrived, time for the judging to begin. As before, it was a moment of singular impatience for Steve. On the one hand, he needed Bucky’s food to be amazing because of course it was. On the other, he wanted the judging to be over so he could have a moment alone with the man of his dreams. Frigga hemmed and hawed but eventually declared that she liked the simplicity of the meal and appreciated their ambition, even if the quick-pickled beets and cabbage hadn’t been her favorite. Matt on the other hand couldn’t stop smiling and asked for more falafel before informing everyone that he truly believed in the spirit of the Barnes family based on what they’d brought to the table today.

Steve gave Jess a look and raised his eyebrows. Is Matt on drugs? 

She shrugged back. Hard to say.

But at long last the judging was over and the Barnes family invited everyone to sit down at their table and eat. Steve found himself sitting across from Bucky, sandwiched between Matt and Becca, shoveling falafel and pickles into a pita and trying not to stare across the table. Bucky winked at him, and Steve buried his face in his food. At least he’d gotten one thing definitely right today, he thought. At least he probably hadn’t filmed Bucky Barnes’ ass all day. He’d been too distracted and nervous for that. And the food was amazing. He had that.

The dinner conversation was no less lively than the day that had preceded it. Steve found himself almost struggling to keep up, even more so as he kept looking to Bucky for affirmation and getting distracted. But there was so much to look at and think about and listen to. Winnie told stories about the children growing up. Becca roasted her big brother. There were more photos on the wall in this room as well, photos of a young Bucky in school plays and on the soccer team. And there was Bucky. Laughing, smiling, talking – there was Bucky everywhere he looked so he filled Steve’s senses and Steve found himself mostly being quiet and taking it in. 

It wasn’t until the dinner was almost over, that Bucky caught his eye and motioned for him to help take a few plates to the kitchen. As Steve obliged, he found himself dropping the plates in the sink and following a giggling Bucky up the stairs (and past yet more photos – how many did Winnie have?) and into another hallway, then up yet another flight to the top floor. Steve didn’t want to presume, but…

“Bucky,” he said, “are you taking me…”

“To my childhood bedroom? Yes. Also my current bedroom, if you remember correctly.”

Steve swallowed a groan. Okay, so his fantasy about the childhood bedroom was coming true. But it was past the point of being emotionally feasible to ask him to stand next to the most perfect man in the world in his actual current bedroom and not be allowed to touch him at all.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Steve said, hating himself deeply for it. 

Bucky smiled so wide that Steve could hear it, “This is an amazing idea.”

And then they were there. Bucky’s bedroom. Bucky’s room. The room of Bucky. Steve’s brain stuttered and stopped as Bucky opened the door, revealing a fairly plain, if small, bedroom, dominated by a queen-sized bed with rumpled covers and an inhuman number of pillows.

Bed.

Bucky.

Ouch.

Steve stood stock still in the doorway of the room while Bucky went in and began rummaging on a bookshelf. “I can’t be here,” he said. “This is a bad idea. Natasha is going to kill me.”

“Found it!” Bucky said. He walked back over to Steve holding a small bound booklet. “I thought you’d like to see this. It’s the recipe book we’ve been using forever in our family. My bubbe put it together, all the recipes she remembers from before the war.”

Okay, Steve thought, maybe that was a good thing to come up here for. “Why are you showing me this? Don’t get me wrong, I think this is amazing, but why?”

He looked up, and Bucky was smiling gently at him. “Because you like hearing stories about my family, and I don’t just want to go on a date with you, Mr. Rogers. I want to date you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” he said, ducking shyly. “My family is part of the deal. We’re a package, part and parcel. You seemed to really like us today, and I thought you’d like knowing even more. Seeing even more.”

“I did,” Steve said. “I do. Your family is wonderful. I kind of wanted your mother to take me home today.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow and Steve laughed. 

“You know what I mean!”

“I do. I’m glad you like them. I’m glad they like you, so far at least. Because if this is going to work, you’ll be seeing them a lot. Shabbos dinners, the holidays, random family gatherings – we spend a lot of time together and if you’re here you’ll be here for it too.”

It was Steve’s turn to smile. “I can’t wait.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As someone who has made all of these dishes, allow me to express that while it is physically possible to do it all in ninety minutes, for the safety and sanity of those around you, don't.
> 
> Also the Barnes family shrine aesthetic is in no way based on my family home. Nope.


	4. Impress the Neighbors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve just wants Bucky to kick butt at the last challenge, but Bucky has other ideas.

Technically speaking, Steve should be filming, not helping Winifred Barnes unload her car. But the day hadn’t start officially yet and Steve was aware that as much as Natasha scared him, Winnie did too. He wanted her to like him. He needed her stamp of approval, Bucky had all but made that clear in their last meeting. So here he was, carrying in pots, pans, and pressure cookers while trying to make small talk with the mother of the man of his dreams.

“I think the Dodgers have a good shot to sweep the Yankees this week,” he said, gesturing for her to hand him another of her grocery bags. “Could be a close game, though, with Martinez injured.”

“Steven,” said Winnie, closing the trunk and shifting bags between her hands as they started towards the filming barn, “when have I ever given the impression I cared about baseball?”

“To be fair,” Steve said, “I did see a lot of baseball photos on the walls of your house.”

“Ah,” she said, hefting a bag up as they reached the stairs. “Rookie mistake. I have those pictures because my kids like baseball and went to those games, not because I do. But you get points for noticing and trying.”

Well good. At least he was getting some points here.

As they came into the studio, Natasha glared at him and he quickly set down the pressure cooker and his bags. “Do you need a hand with anything else, Ms. Barnes? My producer is looking kind of antsy but I probably have another five minutes left before she actually says something.”

Winnie laughed. “No, Steven, it’s fine. I appreciate your help. It’s sweet of you to try buttering me up after all.”

He blushed a little and tried to deny it. “I’m not buttering you up, I’m just…”

“Trying to make a good impression on the mother of the boy you’d very much like to date? Yes that’s fairly obvious. Well, don’t worry. You’re doing a good job and you have my blessing. So far.”

“Thank you,” he said, brushing idly at his shirt. “I know you mean a lot to Bucky so I wanted to make sure you were okay with all of this.”

She shrugged. “He’s a grown man and you’re not horrible looking. He could do worse. Besides, at least we know for sure that you have a job, even if it’s not for much longer given how your boss is looking at you right now.”

He winced and made his apologies. Winnie waved them off. “Go, see what she wants and then ask her if she wants to come over for dinner sometime. I like her.”

Natasha appreciated the dinner invitation – “That woman can seriously cook, Steve.” – but appreciated less his continued fraternization with the contestants.

“This may not be the highest class show in the world,” she said, poking him in the chest, “it might even only be on regional access television, but I will be damned if you and your dick mess up our perfect accountability record.”

“What if,” he found himself saying, “the other team knew about it and was cool with it?”

“What.”

Steve gestured over to where the Stark family was setting up their station as well. Tony saw his wave and gave him and Natasha a broad wink and thumbs up.

“What.”

“He cornered me during filming to ask why I was down and it just came out. They don’t mind that I’m interested in Bucky and they aren’t going to sue us or anything. I think they think it’s sweet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Bucky and Becca come in to the studio. He stopped pleading with Natasha for a moment to wave and was gratified to see them both wave back merrily. Bucky’s smile played behind his eyes as he turned around again to face Nat. Her face was grim and she was grinding her teeth.

“I really, really hate you, Rogers. If I wanted to, I could fire you for this. Like, all of it.”

“But you won’t right? Because Clint is a bigger disaster and you like that I usually listen to the rules?”

She massaged her temples. “I hate you so much.”

He patted her on the back and went to set up his camera. Today was the last day of filming for the Stark – Barnes challenge week. On the one hand, he was filled with excitement. If the Barnes family won today, they’d be going on to the semifinals, which would be amazing for them. They would have a shot at winning the whole thing. Admittedly, this was local access television, so the prize was really just bragging rights, but last year’s winner had gotten a cooking show on the network, so bragging rights weren’t worthless and Steve could see Bucky and Becca being amazing on TV.

Then again, if he lost, if the Barnes family were to somehow blow it, Steve would get to date Bucky now, instead of waiting another five weeks. It was a complicated feeling.

The judges and the hosts lined back up at the front of the room, and Steve started to shoot. It was another formal challenge: create, in just a few hours, a feast to impress the neighbors. The menu should include a starter and a main course, and it should all be cooked “to perfection”.

“All right, lovely families,” said Trish, “knives up and go!”

Both the Barnes and Stark families whirled into action. As opposed to the first round, however, when everyone mostly kept to their own sides of the barn, this time there were pieces of trash talk being tossed across the kitchens, with Tony and Becca in particular enjoying the exchange. Matt and Frigga wandered the tables, as did Sam and Trish, asking the contestants about their food. Steve let Clint and Jess stay tight on the Starks. He was going to spend as much time as he could listening to the Barnes family talk about food.

“…Schav is less popular now than it used to be,” Winnie was saying, while Becca flung a garlic clove across the kitchen at Tony, who retaliated in kind. “Stop that, honey. It’s hard to find sorrel that’s good and the supermarkets don’t sell premade schav on the shelves anymore. But the children loved it growing up and it makes such a good appetizer.”

Bucky chimed in, “We thought about making it a borscht but it would be too heavy. Still, everything is better when you add a couple scoops of sour cream, if we’re being honest.”

“That’s true,” Winnie agreed. “Schav is a classic, so I’m making that with some gribenes to give just a little bit of crunch on the side.”

Sam hemmed and sniffed the pot she was stirring. “What are gribenes?”

Stepping up to the prep table as well to get a look into the schav pot, Frigga answered first, “Fried chicken skin, traditionally, though I’ve never had it paired with schav. That’s very interesting.”

“We would typically pair with tongue,” Winnie went on, and Bucky made a face behind her, “but someone was a whiny baby and vetoed that idea. Besides, it takes too much time to prepare.”

Steve moved on to film what Becca and Bucky were working on. While Winnie made the soup, Bucky was frantically seasoning and preparing a brisket. Sam saw what Steve was filming and came over. 

“Bucky, my man! How are you going to cook a brisket in two hours? Doesn’t that take all day?”

He smirked and kept working. “It would, if we were cooking the traditional way. But that pressure cooker over there is a miracle. This brisket will cook in an hour. No lies.”

Of course Matt chose that moment to drift over to them as well, “Am I hearing you’re using a pressure cooker for the brisket? That’s a risky gambit.”

“But one that pays off very well if it works!”

Matt laughed. “True. I admire your confidence.”

Bucky mimed a salute, but only succeeded in getting sauce all over his forehead. Steve resisted the urge to wipe it off. He just – Bucky was wonderful and confident and good at cooking and he wished his own mother was still alive to meet Bucky because she would fall in love too.

“Rogers.”

Natasha’s voice in his ear suggested that his camera was beginning to drift again, so Steve pulled it together and filmed Becca as she quickly grated potatoes and onions for the latkes.

“Now,” she said to Sam, “we’re making latkes and brisket and artichokes and schav and gribenes and it could feel like a very heavy meal, you know?”

“I feel you,” he said. “Just saying all that aloud makes me feel like I need to go work out.”

“The trick is to balance the ingredients. So the schav won’t be a borscht because we’re also having latkes. The gribenes will round out the schav and the artichoke will lighten up the brisket and the latkes. It should all work together like a beautiful Jewish symphony.”

Bucky snorted. “It’s the food equivalent of klezmer, let’s not kid ourselves here.”

“I don’t know what that is, man, but I feel you.”

Across the room, the food fight between Becca and Tony having quieted down now, the Starks were cooking up a classic Italian meal, much to Steve’s surprise. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but homemade pasta wasn’t quite it. Still, it was cool to film the pasta press and the painstaking process of them getting their pasta all set to go. They were making ravioli for the starter and a risotto for the main dish, both of which were fiendishly difficult dishes to get right.

The chaos swirled around Steve as he filmed, catching moments of tension – when Bucky burned a latke, when Becca dropped an artichoke on the ground, when Winnie almost dumped the salt into the schav – and moments of genuine family connection – when Becca absently called her brother “Jammies” and laughed so hard at his face she had to sit down, when Winnie cut her finger and both children rushed to find her a plaster, when Bucky tasted the soup and then immediately kissed his mother on the cheek. They made Steve warm and reminded him that even if it was another five weeks, even if he had to keep waiting and waiting, he wanted in. He wanted to be part of that picture, more than almost anything.

After two hours, though, there was nothing left to prepare. The dishes were set out at the end of their benches, the lights were moved to allow the judges to look their best while testing, and everyone drew their breaths for the final confrontation. Steve stepped back to get coverage of the main room while Clint did closeups of the dishes.

The Barnes family was tense with anticipation, and Bucky caught Steve’s eye with a tight smile. Steve knew that Bucky had to be doing the same math he was – winning or losing was a toss up but either way could be good for them. It was just a matter of perspective, right?

Well he certainly hoped that’s how Bucky was thinking, at least.

“Lovely families, now is the time for the judges to taste your feasts!”

Steve filmed as Matt and Frigga approached the Stark table first. The Starks had made beautiful ravioli for a start, with a homemade sauce, followed by a white wine risotto. Pepper, Rhodey, and Tony grasped each other’s hands and watched in anticipation as Frigga and Matt carefully tasted each portion before weighing in their judgment.

“I think,” started Frigga, “that you’ve really grasped the essence of home cooking here. The ravioli are perfectly cooked, just slightly al dente, and the filling is properly seasoned.”

“The sauce,” Matt continued, “is a great complement to the dish. I think you’ve made an excellent starter. The risotto, on the other hand,” and here he paused for dramatic effect, “is also perfectly done. The breath, the sigh of the rice really gives it body and life.”

“I agree,” said Frigga. “I think you’ve done a wonderful job with all of your flavors, and your textures are on point as well. There’s not a dish off here, it all works as a symphony of Italian cooking.”

The Starks embraced and the Barnes family politely clapped for them as the lighting crew moved over and set up lights on the other side of the barn for the next judging. Steve filmed Bucky and his family as they looked between each other, a private conversation happening between eyebrows. He hadn’t much considered the idea, but the Starks must have done well so far in the competition. Not as well as the Barnes, sure, but he didn’t remember any big missteps or anything. Huh. He probably should have been paying attention. It was, after all, sort of his job to know this kind of thing.

Bucky had a small piece of hair falling in his face and Steve filmed it as it dangled right over his eyebrow. Bucky was a work of art and Steve was just the humble artist trying to capture the beauty.

“Steven Grant Rogers.”

Or he would be if Natasha would let him. He went back to shooting coverage.

Finally the lighting crew was ready, and it was time for the judges to test the Barnes family dinner. Steve gave a worried look at Bucky, but Bucky wasn’t looking at him. He was staring straight ahead, like he was daring Matt and Frigga to find fault with their dishes. 

The judges came to table and gently tested the schav and gribenes, before hemming and hawing and moving on to the latkes and artichokes and brisket. Steve held his breath. He just – Bucky was such a good cook and the Barnes was an open and loving family. He wanted them to do well. He needed them to do well. Even if it meant he didn’t get to date Bucky any time in the next year, he wanted them to go on to the finals. Because Bucky (and Becca, and Winnie) deserved to be recognized for their cooking and awesome family-ness. 

So he did have to admit he’d fallen into exactly the trap Natasha hadn’t wanted. He was biased as hell.

“I’m afraid,” Matt started, “that this meal doesn’t work for me like your previous ones did.”

Steve was stunned. How dare Matt say something bad about the food! This food was perfect! Bucky made it!

“I agree,” said Frigga. “Where your previous meals all worked together with the pieces fitting into the larger whole, this one feels disconnected. Worse, it’s heavy. The schav is good on its own, but the gribenes add nothing to it and worse they’re overseasoned. The latkes are well cooked but feel out of place, and the artichokes don’t connect with the rest of the dishes. But worst of all…”

Matt continued for her, “The brisket is tough and hard to chew, which is the last thing you want from brisket. You said you cooked it in a pressure cooker?”

“Yeah,” said Bucky, “we needed to cut down on the cooking time.”

“I don’t think the pressure cooker was the right way to go. I’m sorry. It feels like today your heart just wasn’t in your cooking.”

They pushed their plates away from them and stepped back from the table. Steve had to keep filming, but he was in shock. How could it have not worked? However things turned out today, Bucky was supposed to be the best cook in the studio.

Would he even want Steve if he lost?

The judges filed out to make their decision, and Steve filmed the Starks and the Barnes families conversing in wide coverage while he tried to wrap his mind around the apparent utter failure of the Barnes menu. He must have been moping, though, because eventually Natasha came on the headset.

“Rogers, as much as it pains me to say this, it’s going to be fine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your little lovers tiff or whatever has you looking like a mid-2000s emo kid on the first day of school. He likes you. I can tell. It’s fine.”

“But they lost.”

“So?”

Natasha clicked off just as the judges filed back into the studio.

Sam and Trish gathered everyone back into prime lighting configurations and announced, “Everyone, over the past three challenges you’ve made some amazing food. Now it’s time to find out who will be going on to the semifinals.”

Matt and Frigga nodded and then Matt spoke, “It was a tough decision, but after a lot of thought and consideration, we’ve decided that the family who will be moving on will be…the Stark family!”

The Starks erupted in whoops and laughter while the Barnes family cheered for them. Becca even ran over to give Tony a hug, which made Steve think he probably should have been filming whatever friendship those two had managed to form.

“Thank you to both families for all your hard work!” said Sam. And with that, the episode was done, besides the ending coverage for the credits.

Steve carried on filming while everyone chatted, but after about five minutes, Nat told him to pack it in and join the conversation. So it was with hesitation that Steve took off his camera, put it in its case, and approached Bucky, who was standing by their table of food.

“Bucky, I am so sorry.”

“Latke?”

Steve took the proffered potato cake and took a bite. “That’s really good. But I’m really sorry you guys didn’t win. I was rooting for you.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, giving him a long stare, “do you really think I paired latkes and brisket by accident?”

“…No?”

“If we’d won, how long would it take to film the semifinals?”

“Another month or so,” Steve said. “And you probably would have won those, so there would have been the finals after that.”

“And remind me, Steven, is there a prize for winning this show?”

“Not really.”

“Right. So, tell me, hypothetically, why I wouldn’t make a menu the judges were definitely going to hate, ruin a perfectly good brisket, and wait ten minutes to make sure the episode was over before kissing the guy I’ve been wanting to date for a month and a half now?”

“I can’t think of a single reason.”

And with that, Bucky kissed him.

Steve didn’t have words for the kiss – it was what he’d hoped it would be and also different, in the way that any real experience is different from the imagined. But it was good.

Across the room, Tony cheered as Pepper shushed him. Becca made retching noises and Winnie rolled her eyes. Natasha and Matt shared a brief exchange where she explained the situation and he was relieved to understand why the final dishes from the Barnes family had so uncharacteristically failed.

But Steve and Bucky heard and saw none of it, because it was a very good kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for sticking with me through to the supremely cheesy ending!
> 
> I didn't want to write a full epilogue, but the basic gist goes like this:  
> \- Steve and Bucky date and it's great. Steve is adopted into the Barnes family and they all adore him. He learns to cook.  
> \- The Starks make it to the finals.  
> \- Bucky is so popular (thanks in no small part to Steve's camerawork) on the show that he gets an offer for a local access cooking show anyways. He hosts, with Becca and Winnie frequently guesting, Steve is the cameraman.


End file.
